Sounds like imposing religious based laws upon society so that the Church(from which the standard comes) can be reformed. In other words,
make the students smarter so they can straighten out the teacher

Sounds to me like the same sort of thing Judaism is pushing for, with their
Noahide Laws, so we will end up with two more layers of government on top of us, from the "Church" and the "Rabbinical Council".

I do not really understand this. If an attitude like this is true then you can see why there are so many problems with the church and children.
How can someone that is the head of the church say this. This is a perversion. Pope Benedict XVI should step down and the church should have a good
long hard look at itself.
We live in some real messed up times...

i fully agree with your qualification: making a statement like this, given the context, is perverse.
however there's a valid point in the statement (i repeat: it's perverse given the context and the reason for making it): whether we like it or not,
appreciations of behaviour (and their subsequent moral labeling) are subject to change: what we thibk to be morally right or wrong isn't right or
wrong all the time, all over the place! in the seventies there was indeed a social current debating the effects of sexual relations between adults and
children. these weren't perverted pedosexuals, but human scientists. panta rhei.

Many people would never let a young teenager drive a car... or fire and hunt with a high powered rifle... or drive a tractor down a tobbacco path...
but argue that sex is a natural desire and normal developement... but do we want children raising children...we have that now in society...how is that
working?

What you forget is that some people do teach their kids these things in their early years. On a farm a father may teach his 12 year old child
how to properly handle a gun and hunt. The father may also teach the child how to drive the tractor around the farm. The father does this because he
believes that instilling a sense of responsibility, maturity, and independence at a young age will greatly lessen their chances of making a mistake
later on. Parents who try to hide the reality of sex from their child only serve to keep their children ignorant of the dangers of sex. Kids will see
it as this mysterious "evil" thing that only adults should do (and it should be late at night sealed in a dark room under the covers and as quiet as
possible). Then when they get the natural urge to partake in a sexual experience, they are completely ignorant of the consequences because everyone
has hidden the reality of sex from them. Then they blame it on the fact they are "too young and stupid".

Pope: Pedophilia Was "Fully In Conformity With Man And Even With Children"

In an end-​of-​year, shocking Christmas statement to Cardinals and other Vatican officials, Pope Benedict XVI said, “In the 1970s,
paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” and added that paedophilia wasn’t even considered an
“absolute evil,” according to a report in the Belfast Telegraph.
“Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.

(visit the link for the full
news article)

I want to reply to this, but NOT from my personal standpoint. I want to pose to everyone that we only have a current standard of "acceptable"
behavior because someone before us made it so. Even in the Bible, there is nothing against what we call pedophilia. Do I think it's sick? Sure,
but only because our children are developing emotional and mentally MUCH later than children from 100 years ago and even further, and ONLY if the act
is generated outside the confounds of love. But to play the Devil's advocate for a moment, who originally defined that it was wrong? The same goes
for Catholic clergy....who defined that they must be celibate? Not God and certainly not the Bible! The only reason why I bring up the Bible is
because our laws were formed on the moral codes set within it...that is the basis of our morality, regardless of what anyone may or may not believe.

If we want to be technical, polygamy AND pedophilia existed in biblical times....Joseph was in his 40's when he married a 13 year-old Mary, for
God's sake! In the middle east, marriages would occur with little girls far younger than that, to men much older. As I understand it, there is a
courtesy to the families of the children that consummation of the marriage will not take place until the girl has reach maturity - usually at the time
when her menstrual cycle starts. Like it or not, this is when sexual maturity has arrived. Only in modern times and in industrialized nations have
we redefined what is acceptable and what isn't.

So all I'm saying is...200 years ago, or even 100 years ago, we would not be scoffing at this quite so much, because our opinions and cultural
standards were a lot different. Back then, a 10 year old girl could run the entire house and farm on her own, and had the maturity of a 25 year old
woman of today. A boy her age had more responsibility than most young men of today in their 20's or even 30's. They reached emotional and mental
maturity twice or even three times as fast (in some cases) as the generations of today.

To further this notion, and to make a point...the only reason we scoff at incest is because of the issues with genetic deformities. THIS is the bottom
line. A thousand years ago, or two thousand years ago, brothers, sisters, and parents would procreate to ensure their genetic line. There was no
psychologist waiting outside the tent to deal with the "therapy" needed because a daughter got pregnant by her father. Is it gross by our
standards? Yes. But I'm just making the point that back then, standards were different. It's all relevant to what we find acceptable in our
times, by someone who defines what is right and what is wrong.

Given that times are always changing, where will it be in another 100 years or two? What will be considered right and what will be considered wrong?
Just something to think about....

The Pope needs to choose his words and make them represent the fact that Child Abuse in every manner - is wrong - is not condoned by God - is
repugnant and against the law - all of them - Statute, Common and Canon.

Paedophilia is not healthy and not normal.
The Pope needs to use terms that are not ambiguous.

If the Catholic Church wants to hold onto its flock - don't abuse Children, don't protect Priests who abuse Children and don't speak about
paedophilia being anything but wrong wrong wrong.

And I don't care when the article was written - when people read articles like this the date is irrelevant - the message is timeless - paedophiles
need professional assistance and preferably behind closed and permanently locked doors!

Much Peace...especially for all the Children who have endured abuse...

"It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around
his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones." (Luke 17:1-2)

I have felt the same way about the pictures I have seen of him. They capture the true essence of what is behind those eyes. It's his eyes that seem to
hold the truth about what he is. The Catholic Church and many other denominations have hidden behind this veil of rightousness and goodness for
hundreds of years. All of them are being exposed for what they really represent. One by one they are falling. The age of truth is upon us. I forget
the exact words, but in the Book of Thomas Jesus says, "When you search for the truth, you will find it and then you will become disgusted and
troubled by it". When I first read this I didn't fully understand, but now I do.

Originally posted by purplemer
Pope Benedict XVI should step down and the church should have a good long hard look at itself.
We live in some real messed up times...

The only problem I see with that is the next pope, is the last one.

The Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to Saint Malachy, is a list of 112 short phrases in Latin. They purport to describe each of the Roman
Catholic popes (along with a few anti-popes), beginning with Pope Celestine II (elected in 1143) and concluding with the successor of current pope
Benedict XVI, a pope described in the prophecy as "Peter the Roman", whose pontificate will end in the destruction of the city of
Rome.

Clearly goes to show why you should never let your children go to church or partake in any activity when they are not supervised by you or someone you
fully trust. Shows you how sick these popes and strange priests etc are, Also shows just how far away from reality they are when they think this is
normal and that society sees it as normal.

i must surmise then that his holiness is a fan of the penn state nittany lions?

seriously. this guy is sick. the church has done many good things through history, true. it is sad though when you have things like the priests and
the cover ups, places like the magdalene sisters in ireland, (essentially church and state sanctioned slavery of girls and women, not unlike islam)
that have corrupted an institution that could do so much good in the world.

Originally posted by blackthorne
i must surmise then that his holiness is a fan of the penn state nittany lions?

seriously. this guy is sick. the church has done many good things through history, true. it is sad though when you have things like the priests and
the cover ups, places like the magdalene sisters in ireland, (essentially church and state sanctioned slavery of girls and women, not unlike islam)
that have corrupted an institution that could do so much good in the world.

Yeah, I liked it how they burned witches and books back then... back then, everything was better....
Are you serious or don´t you know history?

To me this current Pope is clearly demented and a pervert. There is so much corruption in the Catholic Church....I think with the statements this
current Pope has made about Pedophilia...shows his true colors.

We were all the more dismayed, then, when in this year of all years and to a degree we could not have imagined, we came to know of abuse of
minors committed by priests who twist the sacrament into its antithesis, and under the mantle of the sacred profoundly wound human persons in their
childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime.

Notice the word TWIST. He is saying it's wrong.

We are well aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our corresponding responsibility. But neither can we remain
silent regarding the context of these times in which these events have come to light. There is a market in child pornography that seems in some way to
be considered more and more normal by society. The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of
merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times. From Bishops of developing countries I hear again and again how sexual tourism threatens an entire
generation and damages its freedom and its human dignity. The Book of Revelation includes among the great sins of Babylon – the symbol of the
world’s great irreligious cities – the fact that it trades with bodies and souls and treats them as commodities (cf. Rev 18:13). In this context,
the problem of drugs also rears its head, and with increasing force extends its octopus tentacles around the entire world – an eloquent expression
of the tyranny of mammon which perverts mankind. No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears
whole regions apart – and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately
destroys it.

Again He's saying its wrong.

In order to resist these forces, we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations. In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as
something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos. It was
maintained – even within the realm of Catholic theology – that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a
“better than” and a “worse than”. Nothing is good or bad in itself. Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view. Anything
can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases
to exist. The effects of such theories are evident today. Against them, Pope John Paul II, in his 1993 Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor, indicated
with prophetic force in the great rational tradition of Christian ethos the essential and permanent foundations of moral action. Today, attention must
be focussed anew on this text as a path in the formation of conscience. It is our responsibility to make these criteria audible and intelligible once
more for people today as paths of true humanity, in the context of our paramount concern for mankind.

I also love how

This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos.

I see the words the pope used as very carefully and thought out. In the sense that he was quietly shifting blame from the church and to the "taboos
of the time", this guy must have spin classes for the media and govt because what he did there was no different than saying "well everyone was doing
it" how does that make his doctrine above reproach?

Taking words out of context to twist the meaning of it is the work of the devil himself. Take lawyers for example. The pope stated an opinion about a
period in history where he assumed that pedophilia was accepted and argued that this is the reason for pedophile priests, and condemned the behavior.
IMHO, Pope Benedict seems to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

With this being said the Pope is dead wrong, the root cause of this behavior is not "society" society universally condemns sex with children below
the age of puberty. It is the vow of celebecy and the perverse catholic view as the act of sex being somehow wrong that is the cause. So with no real
sexual outlet except masturbation, some priests take advantage of young children, somehow twist it in their sick, sick minds that it's not the same
as "breaking their vows", and believing they can intimidate the children into keeping it a secret. Sick Sick Sick!

This is an evil which has no equal. People who diddle kids should be castrated with a claw hammer. This is one reason why Hindu priests are allowed to
marry and have a family, because lifetime celibacy causes problems in social settings.

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